A senior Israeli doctor treating child victims of the Syrian civil war has said that snipers in the war-town country are aiming for the spine to cause maximum trauma. Dr Yoav Hoffman, a doctor at the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, is one of many doctors

Tuesday April 1, 2014, 11:56 am
Caption with picture with article: A Syrian boy on a wheelchair in Qah refugee camp. A UN report notes child casualty rates in Syria are the highest recorded.

A senior Israeli doctor treating child victims of the Syrian civil war has said that snipers in the war-town country are aiming for the spine to cause maximum trauma.

Dr Yoav Hoffman, a doctor at the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, is one of many doctors who has been treating severely wounded Syrians at the Western Galilee Medical Centre in Nahariya, northern Israel.

Having examined the patients, 40 per cent of whom have been women and children, he came to a disturbing conclusion.

“I am sure that the snipers hit the spine on purpose,” he said this week after noticing the same gunshot wound “at this very same point” several times in the children he had treated.

At least five of the children were left partially or fully paralysed as a result of the injuries.

“You know by the hit it was by a sniper and it was on purpose,” he said.

“If you want to kill a man, or you want to kill a child, you put a bullet in his head or his heart. They purposefully put the bullet in the lumber [lower] spine so that the child would suffer. I don’t have any other explanation. It was cruel. I almost cried when I saw it,” he said.

Others at the hospital have made similar observations.

“We have young children right now who have been shot in the head or suffered blast injuries, at a very young age. It’s very difficult to understand how this can happen, that a child is shot from a very close distance,” said Prof Jean Soustiel, Director of Neurosurgical Department at the hospital.

This is not the first time that claims about deliberate targeting of children in Syria have been made.

In 2013, a British doctor working in Aleppo’s old city who was treating heavily pregnant women and children who had been shot by snipers, said that he was seeing “children as young as two with gunshot wounds to the head, neck and torso”.

“Some of the pregnant women had been shot in the abdomen. I was told [by local medical staff] this was not unusual,” said Dr David Nott in an interview with UNICEF in February.

More than 5.5 million Syrian children have been affected by the three-year long conflict – a number which has doubled in the past 12 months alone, states a UNICEF report entitled “Under Siege: The devastating impact on children of three years of conflict in Syria“.

“Syria is now one of the most dangerous places on earth to be a child,” states the report, noting that child casualty rates are the highest recorded “in any recent conflict in the region”.

A third of all Syrian children are no longer living in their own homes and about half of all Syrian school-age youngsters are unable to go to school.

Meanwhile, one in 10 children has fled Syria and become a refugee, with “numbers rising every day”.

“By the end of January 2014, 37,498 Syrian children had been born as refugees”, states the report.

Children as young as 12 are also being recruited as militants “to support the fighting, some in actual combat, others to work as informers, guards, or arms smugglers”, the report notes, adding that this trend is on the rise.

In Israel, over 800 Syrians have received medical treatment in four hospitals despite the fact that Syria and Israel are technically at war.

“The world can do more to help the people living in Syria,” said the hospital Director General Dr Masad Barhoum.

At least 10,000 children have been killed in the Syrian civil war, according to UN estimates, but the real numbers are likely to be higher.

Tuesday April 1, 2014, 12:04 pm
Elderberry: Do you always have to post criticisms of Israel?

Do you always have to assume Israel can do nothing right?

Are you so prejudiced, that when that when documentation is there, you refuse to believe it?

Are you so prejudiced that every article that criticizes Israel is by your definition "true"

1) Prove the story is not true or there are facts that differ?

2) Hate sites are like the Neo-Nazi and Islamic ones that tell their followers to go out and murder people.
The Muslim Issue is therefore not a hate site, but a site committed to getting the truth out, even when other people really, really don't like it.

Tuesday April 1, 2014, 1:51 pm
Elderberry, where does the article or Beth say that the snipers are Syrian? I would suggest that the majority are because that is where the war is!

Your attitude is disgusting, you are not condemning this behaviour but looking to blame everybody but the people who are doing it and they just happen to be Muslims. And as for it being a hate site, dear, these are true stories about what Muslims get up to, disgusting and deplorable behaviour which you won't accept. Why are you not condemning Qatar's abysmal treatment of the Nepalese workers to the extent that they are dying? Honour killings are not condemned, all you do is accuse people of hatred. Perhaps you should look closer to home for the real hate, like in the mirror.

Tuesday April 1, 2014, 9:08 pm
gotta love how peaceful these muslims are that we are supposed to love and trust as obama says.
they need to be left to fight each other and kept away from the rest of the world. maybe in a few hundred years they might be willing to join the modern world. instead of staying in the 7th century. or they might just do us all a favor and wipe each other totally out.

Wednesday April 2, 2014, 3:54 pm
The point of the article is that children are being shot and they are victims as are the pregnant women. The majority of these victims are Syrian Muslims but some will be Syrian Christians. The cockroaches are predominantly Syrian but all of them are Muslim.

Israel is doing what it can to help victims regardless of religion. They are go along the borders helping who they can. A paediatrician is concerned enough to speak out, presumably to try to get help for those that are still inside Syria and then along comes Elderberry calling it lies and trying to blame someone, anyone, other than the Muslims and I will not insult cockroaches by comparing them to these barbarians.

Elderberry, if you were not so full of hatred towards everybody other than Muslims, then you would be condemning this tragic and appalling behaviour and supporting the Israelis for helping victims. This behaviour that you consistently display is pathetic.

Wednesday April 2, 2014, 6:16 pm
So, it seems like there is a serial sniper who might have a group of followers. In that kind of war-torn environment, several sick, demented individuals can run rampant committing a wide-range of crimes. After watching programs like "Criminal Minds," my mind can conjure up so many sick scenarios. Wherever there is anarchy, criminally wired minds flourish freely.

Wednesday April 2, 2014, 6:17 pm
“An Arab proverb says: You can extricate a man who has sunk into a quagmire, but it is impossible to remove a quagmire that has sunk into a man. People in the Islamic world have absorbed the quagmire in its entirety and are experiencing a moral crisis. They badly need to feel guilt for the sins they commit.”
—Wafa Sultan, author of A God Who Hates

Thursday April 3, 2014, 10:08 am
We need The Annola Gay and a couple Big Bertha's to quiet the storms of religiosity..lunacy..hand and glove.
They are all doomed under NAU..convert to Panteism or die..:) Native American and no trouble with the Gaia, earth (worship) respect for nature, spiritual practice..:)
Bring it..catch up.:)

Picture of Christian Father with brothers weeping near him; lifting the body of his 3 year old little girl in her sun dress.....headless from cutting.... what terror indeed awaits these beasts at judgment.. .and without the Mercy of Grace whatsoever.

Christians tell us if we don't believe what they tell us to believe and do what they tell us to do we will be in hell forever. FOREVER And that our loved ones are there. I read that Newton became an atheist because if what the church was teaching was true his ancestors were in hell. He could not accept that. Nor can I.

Christians insult the very G-D they claim to worship. G-D is not worse than Hitler.
You could die out of Hitler's prison camps.

The Christian Bible has been corrupted from the time that Constantine made his own religion and called it Christianity. The Bible was translated to give power over the people and their money to the church.

What does the true Creator say about this.

Jeremiah 8:8 with the usual differences from translation to translation but it still says
You say "We are wise. We have the law of the LORD."

The lying pen of your scribes has made it a falsehood.

The exact words vary from version to version. Bible is translated according to the beliefs of those who pay for it.

A little girl cries in the corner because she was told her father is in hell.

Ask not for whom the bell tolls. The bell tolls for thee.

For any who are interested in what the Bible really says, check out the site Tent Maker. Despite the worst the church could do to hypnotize the people, the truth still comes through. Check out the Bible verses, long lists of them on Tent Maker that assures us our G-D is not worse than Hitler.

Scripture says "He is the propitiation for our sins and not for our sins only but for the sins of the whole world." Therefore, if all souls are not saved eventually, Jesus (Yeshua) died a failure.

Friday April 25, 2014, 12:53 am
Truth is, I and many, many people who have had the courage to read scripture for themselves and the courage to THINK for themselves can tell you...G-D is LOVE.

Yes, sins, un-repented which means to stop and begin doing good, yes, they will be punished but within reason. To quote from scripture "Let him who boasts boast that he knows me and that I am just and merciful and righteous."

There is nothing just or merciful or righteous about the hell the church threatens.

Friday April 25, 2014, 10:16 am
I rather agree, Zee. I think God takes into account each person's background and trials and judges accordingly. The concept of God enjoying sending to people to hell for the wrong belief or whatever is not my idea of a God full of endless mercy and true judgment.

Saturday April 26, 2014, 7:00 am
Beth, the concept of God enjoying sending people to hell was Constantine's horrible way to control the people both Christians and Pagans. To me, the concept that my children or my husband was in hell with no hope ever would be far worse than having the enemy kill me. And it is the most absurd insult to Creator, a loving father who wept tears over Israel....it must wound his heart deeply. That's one reason I won't go to church. If a teen ager insisted on going with a group of people who slandered her father, wouldn't she be a traitor?

Let's go back to the story of Jonah, the guy who got swallowed by one whale of a fish or whatever it was. YAH wanted him to warn the people of Ninevah that their karma was gonna git 'em if they didn't shape up.
To me, the Bible is a book of karma. What you sow you will reap. You do good, you will receive good. You act like our today politicians and you're going to hurt...BAD!!! The sinner is the one who hurts the most when the law of karma gets him.

So anyhow, the people of Ninevah got one righteous scare. They changed their behavior and they fasted and didn't party for many days. Can you imagine what Jonah looked like when he appeared out of the ocean all bleached white from the whale's belly! Them guys, they got on their knees fast.

Jonah got mad. He went off by himself and sulked. "You said you were going to send them to HELL and you didn't."

"They changed their ways. If an evil man changes his ways, should I not forgive him. Besides there are a lot of little children. You want me to do WHAT!!! And how about the animals. Listen, I've got several
angel activists up there. I don't want to get them riled."

I know Him. I haven't been an angel through my life. I sure made my share of karma. I was dying about 7 years ago. My whole life was a shambles. I was trapped as a white slave. Even my counselor told me there was no escape. I began crying out to him "I cry unto thee by day and by night, deliver me! deliver me! deliver me!''

I heard an audible voice. "I will and that soon".

Took a couple of months. He zapped me. Diabetes gone. Almost unbearable pain gone. Out of debt in less than a year. Promotion to supervisor at work. Teeth in serious condition repaired according to x rays.
Lovely little nest to live in just as I had visualized. And I have a relationship better than any relationship I have ever had with a person.

I had come to him, after his rescue, and said, "Not my way. Thy way. My way almost killed me. Thy way gives me life." I meant it. I changed my ways fast. It's called repenting. I began following the love teachings of Jesus (Yeshua) I got my act straightened out. And now I've never had it so good. No, I don't have a lot of money...don't want to waste my time on it. But I have a good life with purpose and a God who proves to me over and over again that He is REAL.

Many years ago, when I was a Hope Chaplain in a Las Vegas Hospital I came in to visit this lady who was dying. Her family, a group of Christians, were with her. They told me she wasn't saved. They were terribly frightened for her. They believed in Hell.

I took her hand in mine. I had already learned that a person in a comma can hear you and understand you. They can respond by squeezing your hand. Her family wanted her to "get saved". I asked her if that was what she wanted. She squeezed my hand. I told her about how Jesus had already paid her karma but of course I said "sins" not karma....family there you know. lol I gave her John 3:16. I asked her if she wanted to pray with me. She squeezed my hand. So I said the "quick prayer" even though I don't believe one quick prayer is going to do it. To believe in Yeshua is to live the life of love that he taught. But, like this lady was dying! I asked her if she believed she would go to heaven now. Smile...calm face....excited, thrilled family, tears of joy.

Can you imagine the agony that family would have gone through if YAH had not sent me there to pray with her and let her family know she was "saved"?

We think the enemy is cruel. What about the cruelty of people taught by the church that there loved ones have gone to hell. One preacher bragged that the brother of this guy who had been living an evil life with drugs and the etc. ....the brother asked the preacher, "where is my brother now?"

Preacher's answer...."In Hell."

I read that Newton became an atheist because he said if he believed what the church taught, he would believe his ancestors were all in hell. He couldn't live with that. Could you? Some Christians believe that even children go to hell because they were conceived in sin. My God is not worse than Hitler. You could die out of Hitler's concentration camps.

How many people are in agony because a loved one is "in hell". NO! NO! NO!!! My G-D is not like that.
To me the Bible is a book of karma. You reap what you so. Yes, there is punishment. We have punishment right here on Earth. I got in that mess because I was into a couple of things I'm not going to name because they might offend certain Care2 members whom I love and DO NOT judge. I just know that for me, those things are forbidden. I rebelled against what I thought was cool and went for the wrong and did it anyway! YAH delivered me. I am grateful I'm in love with a wonderful G-D and HE's in love with me. Yah-hooo!!!!

I believe the Bible is a book of karma. What you do to others will be done to you. I believe that as we forgive those who have hurt us, we are also forgiven. That's karma. I believe G-D is outside of this game of the lower worlds that we are in. He is the Lord of Karma. He will rescue us. He already paid our karma but we need to get in a position where we can accept that, change our lives as he has changed so many people's lives, and living becomes joy. It's not religion. It's RELATIONSHIP.

I hope that at least partly responds to your "What is your take on the article?"

That's my take.

If you want to know more and you want to think for yourself, check out Tent Maker. It's a site for people who dare to question and THINK for themselves. The Old Testament says, "Come let us REASON
together." Most churches don't talk about that verse. They want us to believe Constantine's religion.
They don't want us to REASON.

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